News Flash - 28
February 2006

Council of
Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) publishes
report on Ireland

The Council of
Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring mechanism, the Group of States
against Corruption (GRECO) has published today its
Second Round
Evaluation Report on Ireland. The report has been made public with
the agreement of the Irish authorities.

GRECO concludes
that Ireland has a solid legal framework supported by a
multidisciplinary approach which allows for effective measures to
deprive criminals of the proceeds of corruption through criminal
law confiscation and a developed system of civil forfeiture. With
regard to public administration, which in the last decade has been
considerably modernised towards transparency and
customer-orientated services, GRECO recommended, inter alia, to
reconsider the existing fee system for access to official
information. GRECO also called for clear rules/guidelines for
public officials to report suspicions of corruption as well as for
regular training on standards of conduct and expected behaviour.
Furthermore, in another field covered by its evaluation, GRECO
found that the Irish company legislation is generally
well-developed; nevertheless, it recommended to consider enhancing
the registration process with regard to the material checking of
persons behind companies and strengthening the criminal sanctions
in respect of account offences.

Measures taken by
Ireland to implement the recommendations will be assessed by GRECO
in the context of a specific compliance procedure, towards the end
of 2007.